Summer Games Challenge 2017 - Begin when ready!

[alienjesus]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Toejam and Earl when I played it. But it's slow pace and random nature doesn't lend me to want to replay it often. It's a great game to go back to when the mood takes me, it's just not a regular choice for me

[BogusMeatFactory]

Toejam and Earl is top tier genesis games! It was a white whale for me for a long time in terms of beating it because as a kid it seemed impossible and that fear carried over to my adulthood. One day I just decided to beat it and did, playing it on the virtual console on Wii. I remember my wife finding it so silly that I was screaming and jumping around at oncoming boogeyman and the sheer elation when I got to victory island when I beat it.

Such a rush and truly lives up to its place as one of the greats... for me.

[pierrot]

Yeah, I don't want to give the wrong impression; I enjoyed playing TJ&E. I don't think it's a bad game, at all, and I understand why many people love it so much. I can also understand why some really don't like it. My experience playing it again, after all these years, was mostly positive. I just don't think there's enough there to really warrant replaying on my own. Also, a few of the enemies are real goobers.

I found out after the fact, that I had stopped reading the manual at a pretty inopportune point. I went back to it after beating the game, to look through some of the cool artwork for the NPCs, and realized that I had made a huge error in avoiding the wizards, wisemen, and opera singers. Whoops. Probably would have made things a bit easier. I also didn't know that the monster mailboxes could be spotted by watching for blinking eyes.

[alienjesus]

1. Bionic Commando (NES)
2. Blaster Master (NES)
3. Life Force (NES)
4. Bonk's Revenge (TGCD)
5. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
6. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped(PS1)
7. Mario Golf (N64)
8. Pilotwings 64 (N64)
9. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (GC)
10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GC)
11. Devil May Cry (PS3)


I sat down and marathoned the rest of Devil May Cry this afternoon - I'd beaten chapters 1-9 over two sessions previously, and I did 10-23 in one sitting today.

Devil May Cry is a product of it's time. There's no way it deserves it's 94% metacritic rating nowadays, and I have to imagine the reason it had it back then was that it was a novel and new experience. It has been bettered in just about every way though - it's combat is basic, difficulty is uneven, objectives sometimes unclear, story incoherent and length short.

I'd give it a 6/10 or so. It's enjoyable enough, but I found it unremarkable in almost every way.

Going into Twin Snakes next. I'll probably go for Mario Golf after that.

Final Fantasy is likely to be an 'overtime' game in September at this point. Blaster Master too.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Oh wow. I did not expect this.

So, Donkey Kong Country is one of my favorite games of all time. Best non-Mario platformer, I'd say.

I don't care for the sequel.

The throw mechanic is cumbersome. Too many levels have a goofy "gimmick" that doesn't show up again (hot air balloons, timed barrels, lava/water switch-offs).

The bonus stages are awful. The coin/token/whatever collectathon elements are unnecessary and foolish. Music and graphics are brilliant, this much is undeniable.

I just feel "meh" about the whole thing. It's a frustrating and clunky game, and I feel little reason to continue playing it.

Probably done with the Challenge in general, really. I have little time to play video games these days and I've been craving a long-ish RPG.

Hey, I did beat Scramble though!

[pierrot]

So, Donkey Kong Country[...]. I don't care for the sequel.

I don't blame you. Of the three SNES DKCs, I only really like the third one. I'm sort of willing to bet you wouldn't enjoy it too much, though.

[Key-Glyph]

Toejam & Earl is one of my favorite games of all time too. I promise you, that ice cream truck horn will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Oh, and different playthroughs on Random World will put pieces on different levels, but the number of levels per playthrough never changes. It's always fixed at 25 (if I'm remembering the right number), as in, your last ship piece will always be on that final level. So there's no getting lucky and having a shorter game.

As far as my Summer Games Challenge adventures go, I had quite a productive day. The only thing that could get me out of a crushing funk was settling down to try to repair my SNES. Taking it apart and cleaning it didn't fix it (it was very clean), but it just so happens that a coworker and friend of mine lent me a dormant SNES that's been floating around her extended family for many years. After taking that one apart and cleaning it... hers worked! I shall continue working on my own console -- and will also open hers up again to give it a really thorough cleaning -- but in the meantime, I'm enjoying some games.

Thus, I just beat Star Fox. I'm proud of myself, because I am TERRIBLE at games like this (Space Harrier, After Burner, etcetera). I just can't process the visuals very well. And yes, I know that Star Fox is technically different in that it's 3D polygons and not scaled sprites, but my brain doesn't care. It has the same amount of trouble trying to figure out what the heck it's looking at.

I got frustrated a bit, but ultimately enjoyed the experience. I particularly liked the aspect of assisting my teammates when enemies were dogging them. When I first started playing, however, there was no way I could tell them apart from enemy ships, and so I got sassed a lot. Do you actually damage them when they get caught in your line of fire?

[alienjesus]

Star Fox is one of my favourite games for the system. Most people prefer the sequel, but for my money the first game is the best despite it's 10 frames a second frame rate and very basic graphics.

It's definitely got the best atmosphere - I love the music for Corneria and the Space Armada.

I also love the voices
Falco: "WUR-WUR-WUR-DAMAH!"
Peppy: "WIB WIB WIB WI-WIWIJ"
Slippy: "BIB BIBBIB BIB BIBBIB"

Which path did you take? The centre path is the easiest route, with the top path being medium and the bottom being hard.

There's some cool secret levels you can access if you meet some specific conditions too.


Looking forward to you playing Super Metroid now. Unlike Starfox I didn't have that as a kid, but I'd still rate it as possibly the best game for the Super Nintendo.

[alienjesus]

Sorry to double post, but I have updates to post and no-one else still seems to be going but me and Key right now

1. Bionic Commando (NES)
2. Blaster Master (NES)
3. Life Force (NES)
4. Bonk's Revenge (TGCD)
5. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
6. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
7. Mario Golf (N64)
8. Pilotwings 64 (N64)
9. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (GC)
10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GC)
11. Devil May Cry (PS3)


I started up Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes yesterday night. I remember when I played the PS1 game I had some real trouble with the opening segments with the Helipad and the Tank Hangar. Now that I've beaten MGS 1, 2 and 3 as well as the 2 MSX games, I figured I'd ace it this time.

Nope, I died a whole bunch. I eventually got by the Helipad by diving into the air vent with enemies on my tail, and I got through the hangar by chaff grenading a camera and sleep darting both the guys walking around using the new first person view. Enemies don't seem capable of looking up, which will be valuable information for later.

I made it through the opening sections, found the Darpa cheif and Meryl and took out Ocelot in the basement, so things should be easier from here on out. They were in the PS1 game.


I also started up Blaster Master tonight. One of the reasons I've been slow on progression with this list I think is because it's all console games and I don't always have access to the TV, so I decided to play Blaster Master via Wii U Virtual Console using the gamepad as a handheld instead. It also comes with the benefits of suspending the game so I don't have to sit down for marathon 3 hour sessions every time I attempt Blaster Master.

This time I've made a note to search out good spots for grinding weapon power ups so that I can be souped up in time for the bosses. I've never beaten the 5th boss, but he should be easy if I max out my gun.

I've just suspended the game after taking out the boss of world 2. I expect this game will take more than one run to conquer. Although I'm only using save states for suspending play, at least for now, I have allowed myself the concession of using online maps to make progression at least a bit easier. Time's running out on summer after all.

[prfsnl_gmr]

So...I am basically rubbish at RBI Baseball. I have lost a lot of games, and I think my criteria for beating it will be to just complete a nine-game season. If I can do that, I feel that: (1) I will be better than most people at the game; and (2) I will have seen everything the game has to offer.